This invention relates generally to rope chain jewelry and more particularly to rope chain jewelry of the hollow type.
A rope chain may be made up of annular links formed of solid wire, usually a precious metal such as gold. The wire is formed in links, with each link generally having an overall C-shape to define a gap in the annular periphery. In a known manner, a multiplicity of such individual links are intertwined to form, in outward appearance, a double helix rope chain.
In order to reduce the weight of precious metal and thereby reduce the cost of a finished item without any compromise in aesthetic appearance, rope chains are now made using hollow links. After formation, the individual hollow links are intertwined, just as the solid links are intertwined, to form what is known as the hollow rope chain.
Different appearances have been achieved for the solid link rope chains by using links of different cross sections. This is effected by assembling the chain from links that are pre-shaped with special cross sectional configurations other than conventional circular and oval shapes. Also, after a solid rope chain has been fabricated, cross sections of conventional shape have been varied in the prior art by techniques known in the trade as diamond cutting. In these techniques external portions of solid links are sheared away to produce many attractive patterns. Further, again with the motive to provide a less costly rope chain that gives the same appearance as a solid link rope chain, techniques have been developed for faceting hollow link chains by deforming the outer surface without removal of material.
Additionally, unique appearances for rope chains have been created by using links that are not C-shaped before being intertwined to form a rope chain. The links may be square in shape, rectangular, hexagonal, or of other shapes that can be fabricated with a gap in the perimeter and a open central area such that links of similar shape may be intertwined in the known manner to form the double helix of a rope chain.
Unfortunately, because all of the rope chains, whether solid or hollow and regardless of the link shape, present an outer surface with one link lying adjacent to another link, and so on around the double helix, many chains have a corrugated look which results from the cross section of the solid or hollow links and the type of contact, e.g. point, linear or surface to surface, between adjacent links.
The patent to Dal Monte, U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,995, issued Feb. 16, 1993, addresses this problem for solid links in order to provide a rope chain having a smooth, tight and non-corrugated appearance. However, there is no indication that the principles of his invention can be successfully applied to hollow links of any type. In fact, the use of hollow wire is discouraged as difficult and costly to produce (col. 5, lines 44-48).
What is needed is a rope chain made of hollow links that is also smooth and close fitting, without a corrugated surface.